


Bag Full of Cats

by Estivate



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Abuse of Authority, Be Prepared for Anything, Daddy Kink, Domestic, Dream States and Kinkception, Dubious Consent, Fractured Dead/Alive Dove, Fragmented Narration, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, JFC (These Tags), Kinktober and Beyond, M/M, Main-verse Human AU, Mind Games, Multi, Recovering Trauma, Stories within Stories within Stories, Thor honestly tries his best, Unprofessional Practice
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2019-08-09 11:49:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16449398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Estivate/pseuds/Estivate
Summary: .“Who are you?” he says to the stranger sleeping next to him.---Patient: LokiAge: uncertain – between 14-16; still no background foundSymptoms: abnormally vivid dreams, sexual precociousnessNotes: Will need to contact Steve about those test results: How might strong hallucinogens affect a developing mind? Nightly lucid dreams that somehow have an internal narrative consistency unlike those of normal REM dreaming. Various recurring cast and characters as well as motifs. I’m featured in each one: as a subject of focus, both positive and negative, violent and sexual. It could be that the child has a knack for storytelling, but I have no reason to believe he is making falsehoods. Yet.-	Dr. T Odinson.





	1. World A.1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tkillamockingbird (Theboys)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theboys/gifts).



 

There was something to be said for waking up in the mornings to an unfamiliar ceiling, in a room he doesn’t recognize, with no recollection of a life lived, or an identity of his own.

 

Repeatedly.

 

He rubs his eyes.

 

“Who are you?” he says to the stranger sleeping next to him.

 

\---

 

_Patient: L0k1-233.i.v_

 

_Age: uncertain – between 14-16; no background found_

 

_Symptoms: to be assessed_

 

_Notes: Easily disoriented. No previous experiences or recollections given when asked (likely due to trauma). Cocktail of drugs only recently cleared from system. As a result, improved lucidity later in the day. The extent of normal adolescent functioning questionable though certainly intelligent, if only still forgetful._

 

_T Odinson_

 

 

\---

 

A man like Steve really didn’t deserve to be in this profession, given the things he saw. But they had finally caught the bastard, and it was an accomplishment that would end the reign of underworld terror if nothing else to say of his career. At the very least it warranted a coffee.

 

“For an officer who put Thanos behind bars, you don’t seem like a celebratory man.” Thor sat across from his desk, lab coat on the back of his chair. Rogers took it gladly and relished the black bitterness of it down his throat. Paparazzi always wanted an imagine of the criminal in cuffs being guided into the car. No one ever saw to the kind of clean up and repair by the innocents caught up in the fallout.

 

“It’s always the worst when it’s children.” He hands Thor a file. Thor takes it. The details are minimal. No official record then. Sold nightly as one of Thanos’ expensive living assets. Prostitution wasn’t the word. At least prostitutes had an awareness for what they were doing. Thanos’ toys were always drugged and trained into submission. The customers liked them that way.

 

“If it’s as bad as this indicates, I can’t promise anything. Do you even know the kind of substances they used?” He raises an eyebrow. The man’s merchandise was notorious for its potency and unusual chemical compositions.

 

“En Dwi was somehow tipped off before we raided his lab. I can see what the results say once they’re in but he’s a man well known for covering his tracks. You’d never expect it given how everyone’s accounts describe him as mad as the hatter.”

 

“Why not give this case to Banner? His neuroscience background might be more helpful.”

 

Steve shakes his head “Nuh uh. Too stressful.”

 

Thor tips back a drink from his own cup, the acrid beverage leaving a layer of caffeine over his tongue and teeth.

 

“I know it’s not easy to ask, but this one was the oldest-seeming of the cohort, and yet still a kid. I could keep him here under surveillance with security cameras and a padded room, but that’s the last thing he needs. To the rest of the world he doesn’t exist. He needs someone. Preferably with a home. Yours is also a clinic.”

 

Steve pauses to run his hand through his hair. He doesn’t look like he’s slept yet. The arrest was only yesterday. Bucky was busy preparing a statement for the city later today, and Steve didn’t easily turn to others outside his department.

 

“Alright.” Thor states easily and sincerely.

 

“It’d really help if I knew he was getting the professional attention he nee—. Oh.” Ears catching up to his altruistic brain. Steve smiles in relief finally, even if it is weary and strained.

 

“Thanks Thor. I knew I could count on you.” And then he looks down at his fingers caught on the edge of the wood. “Uhm…but you’ll see what I mean by stressful.”

 

Thor’s seen bad. He can face it.

 

\---

 

The boy is sitting with his head resting on his knees when Thor comes in. The room is sterile and featureless other than the bed and change of clothing they gave him. Thor can only imagine those mad becoming even madder in this kind of bleak setting.

 

He raises his head at the sound of approaching footsteps and smiles vacantly with a tug at his lips at the man standing before him, getting a look at his new patient for the first time. He swallows.

 

The youth is beautiful.

 

“Evening sir, how can I please you tonight?”

 

\---

 

It takes another few days before he says anything else when greeting him. Certain variations existed: “Which hole do you want to start with first?”, “How about a drink with that? Sakaar offers the finest.”, “Have you missed me? I missed you.” But regardless, recognition never lights up those eyes.

 

He’s trained to not take no for an answer. Crawls towards Thor on all fours and attempts to work him free from his pants pre-emptively. Thor restrains him by tying his wrists to the metal bedposts as gently as he can, tucking him in swaddling blankets, and soft pillows until those eyelids finally, finally lower in sleep.

 

\---

 

After four days the effects start to wear off. Unreturned advances give way to confusion. Thor introduces himself endlessly it seems. Sometimes he’d start to remove his shirt in response, even after Thor redressed him in it. A stern “no” at each button done up.

 

On the last “no,” the kid’s body sags as his hands stop to hold the corners of the shirt edge. He’s exhausted from the repeated effort, and so is Thor.

 

\---

 

Then the nightmares start.

 

He thrashes in the sheets, blood curdling screams that Thor thinks might put a murderer to shame. He forcibly restrains him with his own bulk, unable to wake the boy and holds him tight until he calms down against his chest. Thor keeps his position on the back of the guest room bed with his arms around the body, eventually able to slack into an embrace, but only well into the morning, and barely before dawn. It’s not a difficult thing to do so, even with the boy’s surprising wiriness, but he has to maintain it until the episode passes.

 

From then on it’s the only way the boy is able to fall asleep naturally for any decent period of time and fully through a night. Thor keeps those nails neatly trimmed, waits for daybreak but never makes it without also nodding off.

 

It’s only body heat and human touch.

 

\---

 

Each morning, as the first slants of light hit the foot of the bed and transition up, warming the bodies underneath. “Who are you?”

 

Thor yawns and blinks asynchronously. “I’m Thor.”

 

He looks around puzzled. The bed is not his, nor is it from one of the clubs’ rooms either. “En’s never let anyone take us home before.”

 

“Mhmm. Are you hungry?”

 

It always triggers the same answer said with a stiff smile.

 

“More than I ought to be after last night.” and then the kid tries running a hand down his crotch. 

 

Thor groans internally and rolls out of bed from the side. Mjolnir pokes her paw in from underside the door, meowing for food and attention. “Alright. Up. Food.” He has to keep a hand around the shoulder of the boy to guide him through the hallway downstairs.

 

\---

 

A pattern is quickly established, and it takes a few days before any response of it changes. It’s agonizingly slow progress and he can’t tell, day by day, whether anything of significance is retained.

 

The boy eats his bacon and eggs in bewilderment. Mjolnir’s gotten a bit more used to him, once the night terrors ceased. Stares at his green-eyed kin curiously, and at a distance.

 

“Who are you?”

 

Today the question is a bit more delayed.

 

“I’m Thor.”

 

“Does En know I’m here?”

 

Thor figured out three days back that the safe answer was yes, so he nods assuredly and offers a gentle smile before stealing a potato wedge.

 

“Why am I here?”

 

Thor wipes the table granite top and shoos the cat off, playing it casual but also with some seriousness. “You’re weren’t well, but you’re safe now, don’t worry. I’m Dr. Odinson, but please, call me Thor.”

 

“Hello Thor, whatever you’d like.” He smiles brightly, having finally done something correctly. Thor winces.

 

“What’s your name?”

 

“Pet.”

 

Thor screams internally. Better than yesterday. Yesterday he had said cockslut with a blithely innocent expression and Thor almost decided on early retirement. He still recalls the stark manilla files. _Patient: L0k1-233.i.v_

 

“From now on you can go by Loki, how would you like that?”

 

“Whatever you’d like Thor.”

 

It was chilling. He doesn’t envy the officers in charge of interrogating Thanos. He hopes they find En Dwi soon.

 

\---

 

Fast-forward. Repeat. Start on a warm, soft surface in a sun-lit room.

 

“Who are you?”

 

“I’m Thor.”

 

“Hello Thor. I’m Loki.”

 

\---

 

_Patient: Loki_

 

_Age: uncertain – between 14-16; still no background found_

 

_Symptoms: parasomnia, rote memory_

 

_Notes: Currently in stable health. The nightmares can be curbed – possibility of looking into sleep medication? Eats when food is placed in front, but never does so unprompted. Rapid recent improvement in memory retention: the full extent of long-term memory retention has yet to be determined. Routine habits and schedules should be implemented. Still many unintentional inappropriate moments, through no fault of his own. Shows signs of imprinting behaviour, one associated with a crucial and short window of time. Keep indoors. Some instances of novel independent thought and behaviour is starting to manifest._

 

_Good with animals._

 

_T Odinson._

 

\---

 

During the day Thor reads and researches. Loki always watches. He doesn’t go so far as to adapt Thor’s mannerisms, but rather, like Lorenz’s ducklings, followed him from room to room.

 

Mostly Loki took to studying everything around him with genuine interest. The framed degrees on his walls, testing the calligraphy of his fountain pen, draws with it while seated at his mahogany desk. Sometimes he’ll organizing the books back onto their shelves and flip through the pages, or feed Mjolnir more cat treats than she needed.

 

At this moment he was asleep along the window seat, cat curled up under the legs – both cushion and warmer. Thor drapes a fleece blanket over them, tucking the end under Loki’s chin and creating a makeshift tent for the cat.

 

At night. All three of them continue sharing the bed.

 

\---

 

Mjolnir makes a small noise of activation from where she was loafing on the comforter between their bodies when Loki greets her. “Morning Thor.” It’s all very unorthodox, but it’s what works.

 

“Morning Loki.” he greets in a smooth voice, rubs his jaw along the stubble.

 

“I had a dream.” Loki mumbles clumsily, tongue heavy and mouth dry.

 

Thor sits up. This was new. “Oh?” He slips a hand underneath his pillow for the moleskin notebook before reaching on the bedside table for his glasses.

 

“What happened?” Thor sets the glasses over the bridge of his nose and has pen to paper ready just as Loki opens to respond.

 

\---

 

_Patient: Loki_

 

_Age: uncertain – between 14-16; still no background found_

 

_Symptoms: abnormally vivid dreams, sexual precociousness_

 

_Notes: Will need to contact Steve about those test results: How might strong hallucinogens affect a developing mind? Nightly lucid dreams that somehow have an internal narrative consistency unlike those of normal REM dreaming. Various recurring cast and characters as well as motifs. I’m featured in each one: as a subject of focus, both positive and negative, violent and sexual. It could be that the child has a knack for storytelling, but I have no reason to believe he is making falsehoods. Yet._

 

_T Odinson._

 

\---

 

“They’re so real. Almost like the memory of another life. Or maybe parallel lives, just waiting for me to close my eyes and witness them where I left off.”

 

Loki is sitting on the carpet floor of his study, rubbing Mjolnir as she rolled over to balance on her back, paws flopping in the air. She purrs indecently at Loki’s touch, lets him tease in between each toe bean.

 

Of course, she only understands the luxuriance of her own existence. Thor is still trying to make sense of it all.

 

“You said that she was a hammer? One that called forth thunder and lightning. And I was the god of sparks.”

 

“Uh huh.”

 

“And that we were brothers.”

 

“Yup.”

 

Thor writes it down in his notebook. Mjolnir did have storm grey fur, and Loki had once petted her so much that she became statically charged.

 

Something in Loki’s eye, the look that always makes Thor feel as if he is the one being studied instead of the other way around, makes him wonder how much Loki might be embellishing. Thor’s never had a dream half as interesting as the ones Loki recounts.

 

He looks up from where he’s seated at the foot of Thor’s leather armchair. “We lived in a palace. Grew up together. Became rather consumed with each other’s lives.”

 

It could be a form of character insertion into the aspects of one’s life that brought escapism or comfort. Not entirely unheard of. Thor starts to become a little flustered under the collar, writing furiously, scrawl so urgent and cramped that he’ll have difficulty rereading his notes later.

 

“Elaborate.”

 

Then Loki leans his head against the meat of Thor’s thigh, and the green yearning of those eyes tells him everything.

 

Thor shakily removes his glasses.

 

\---

 

_Patient: Loki_

 

_Age: uncertain – between 14-16; still no background found_

 

_Symptoms: talented dreamweaver, skilled storyteller, (potential pathological liar)_

 

_Notes: En Dwi did indeed favour hallucinogens. Given the age bracket of his subjects, it often made the experiences more…fun. Engaging for a childlike individual, and thus a more willing participant. The boy is astute, there’s no question. Neither can his fixations on the only parental figure in his life right now be blamed on him. Future separation or independence may be difficult or traumatizing._

 

_This is most troubling._

 

_T Odinson._

 

\---

 

Thor has lived alone for a long time. There is very little in the house meant for children or teens. His personal library includes various anthology textbook volumes, journals and publications, theses and dissertations primarily: pedantic for someone like Loki. He makes sure to put away the tv remote control too. Doesn’t want Thanos’ profile to flash on the screen when channel flipping. Or En Dwi’s wanted thumbnail at the corner of a news special.

 

He can’t stop Loki from drawing however and would rather it stay on paper than move to the walls, so he provides enough of it. Thor looked at the works once. Cats all over. Poses of Mjolnir from memory and absurdity. Pages and pages and pages.

 

The boy isn’t even a wellspring or fountain of imagination, more like a geyser of fantasy harlequin novel mind trips. He cheerily tells them to Thor every morning. Cereal becoming soggy in the bowl.

 

He starts cold-showering after breakfast.

 

\---

 

Thor wasn’t a specialist in dreamscape psychology, but he knew that Freud would’ve given his left nut for a patient like Loki. Thor agonized over his notes. The charlatan was surely convulsing in his grave right now.

 

He rereads the compiled entry from the top. Had tried organizing them by relation. The only consistency was that their roles were always defined by each other. The bullet points didn’t even begin to mention the greater details of each, only the premise.

 

_Brothers:_

 

  * _princes from a foreign land in a fight for the throne, brotherly bond worn thin by years of steady betrayal_
  * _orphaned twenty-somethings, getting by on odd jobs across the American South_
  * _half-siblings from mob boss Odin’s affair with the cleaning maid Farbauti; she dies in a car accident and Loki comes to live with them, raised alongside Thor when Odin thinks he could use the veiled opposition_
  * _adopted when Frigga miscarries and can’t bear to throw away the newly made cradle or tell Thor that he won’t be meeting his new little baby brother_
  * _estranged after a personal family tragedy in which secrets came out in the worst of ways, they see each other again at Odin’s funeral; Thor is now married; he’s never stopped writing letters for Loki to come home_



 

_Not-brothers:_

 

  * _spoiled son of English nobleman Laufey and stable boy, cattle herder, and field hand Thor_
  * _penitent choir boy Loki in the confessional with cardinal priest Thor who is reconsidering his oath to the cloth_
  * _personal manservant to Thor, of the esteemed house of Odin, at their ancestral county estate, being taught the art of whoredom at night the way wealthy libertines do_
  * _vestal virgin Loki at the mercy of barbarian, warlord Thor, stubbornly guarding the temple with nothing else of interest to loot by the men he leads_
  * _cup-bearer to the ruling tyrant Thor, interesting himself merely in border expansion conquests and orgiastic bacchanalias_



 

_Non-human:_

 

  * _merman Loki in love with the prince of the kingdom by the sea, makes a deal with Angrboda the witch_
  * _alien race species, intersexed for high-end political breeding programs_
  * _sleeping princess in the tower (Loki was not necessarily always male in these dreams) greedily kept by a terrorizing countryside dragon Thor_
  * _latest android pleasure model L0k1-233.i.v; lonely colony worker Thor_
  * _abandoned black cat, runt of the back-alley cardboard box litter, on a snowy, silent night, Christmas Eve_
  * _demon Loki who has cursed peasant Thor with immortality, every once in a human lifespan summoning him to play with the devil’s court demons from the Lesser Key of Solomon_



 

“This is getting crazy.” Thor whispers under his breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. He snaps the elastic over the cover of the moleskin.

 

“Like I said. They’re just as realistic as you are now behind the eyelids and before.” voice a sotto voce.

 

Thor looks up to the figure propped against the frame of the doorway. Loki gingerly padded around barefoot and had the uncanny ability to tread silently. He wore his yellow duck pyjamas and one of Thor’s old, oversized t-shirts. He frowns. “You should be in bed.”

 

Loki smiles, “You know I don’t sleep well without you.”

 

Thor was hesitant to prescribe sleep medication to a child under eighteen. But… he’s becoming wary.

 

But so is Loki.

 

“How do I know that all this – that you – aren’t merely a dream too?” The solitary cooling lamp on the desk making the lighting even more surreal and dreamlike. “In many of them it tends to go a little like this.” Loki kneels between Thor’s legs. Drawn to the heat there.

 

Thor’s resolve may be weakening by the second, but he’s still a professional. “Loki, this isn’t Club Sakaar. You don’t’ have to do this. No one is expecting you to do this.”

 

He pouts in petulance. It’s such a childlike gesture that Thor shudders. “What if I want this?”

 

“You don’t know what you want Loki. You don’t even know your own past. Who you were or who you are.”

 

“I know who I can be. I can be good to you, just as you’ve been good to me.”

 

“Loki—” Thor struggles as he slowly unzips the fly, “That’s not why I took you in.”

 

His half hard member springs forth as Loki looks on, self-satisfied. “Will you send me away then?”

 

Thor can only hear the blood rushing in his ears, his own breath panting. Loki hears, “You know I won’t.”

 

“Have you determined if I’m insane?”

 

Maybe. Understandably. He certainly possessed the same artful beauty of the truly mad. Alice’s reflection winking at her from within the looking glass.

 

Loki shrugs. To think he’d care so little about Thor’s diagnosis. “If I am… then don’t begrudge me this.” He pauses to smirk, “I only want a taste. To compare.”

 

And takes an experimental lick before Thor can choke out _‘Compare to what?’_

 

He can only imagine. The countless patrons corrupt amongst corrupt, who have come before him. Attended the gaudy glimmer and goods of En Dwi’s _commodities_. Or does he mean the dreamed fellatio of his own counterparts instead. Greeting him each night with parted lips to prick. Details so lurid that if Loki had any shred of propriety he’d be embarrassed to reveal in broad daylight.

 

But no.

 

Maybe he was right. What did the past matter anymore. Pursuing it was unproductive and could backfire. Loki was most likely to stay under his care from now on. All it would take was a signature. He already belonged to him in a way, hadn’t he?

 

Loki takes his cock head in with a wet plop, cheeks hollowing expertly.

 

Steve help him, the boy was talented.

 

Thor remembers to take in air and bites his bottom lip. His glasses are skewed and he can’t see the sight as well as he wants to, but impression was more vivid than recall anyway: dark hair bobbing, mouth sucking, tongue laving, the pressure in his balls building, building… so amazingly tight.

 

Twenty years of psychiatric work. His MD framed on the wall. He closes his eyes and stiffens against the wingback of his leather office chair. Shoots hot inside Loki’s mouth.

 

Loki swallows and finishes him off with a swipe of his tongue around the outline of his lips. “Even better than warm milk.”

 

Thor eyes him helplessly. Body spent in surrender.

 

“Now come to bed and wish me sweet dreams.”

 

\---

 

That night they lie together, Loki spooned in Thor’s arms. Mjolnir’s refractive eyes peer unblinkingly from the foot of the bed, front paws crossed judgmentally.

 

Thor tries his best to ignore the way his cock stirs against the cleft of the boy’s ass.

 

\---

 

_Patient: Loki_

 

_Age: uncertain – between 14-16; still no background found_

 

_Diagnosis: dissociative identity disorder_

 

_Notes: Three months since being released from Thanos’ underworld business and En Dwi’s sex trafficking/gambling/party den, stability has been achieved in mental and physical health. That said, stability in this case is far from an ideal state of being. The child is unsuited for life in society but has potential for future improvement under the guidance of a suitable professional._

 

_Recommended course of action: custody of minor under the guardian and wards act._

 

_Signed: Dr. Thor Odinson._

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now you might not be able to tell, but I AM trying to be a bit more fluffy than my usual brand of angst here.
> 
> ....is it working? 
> 
> Taking votes on prompts here. Enablers, you know what to do.


	2. World B.1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Secret Garden + The (Not So) Innocents

 

 

He played leisurely on the unlatched iron gates of their ancestral country estate, standing on the bars and hitching the sturdy iron frame back and forth with all his weight. The wind blew through the peeling bark of cypress tree rows, distorting its own sound before causing the gate to creak and give, pushing Loki back with it.

 

His little world was about to be disrupted from its composure: Thor was coming back from boarding school for the summer today, and while he’s been gone Loki’s been playing by himself for too long, staring warily at the smiling adults, and only coaxed out from behind the skirts of his governess with expensive bonbons.

 

Boarding school was right, he thought sullenly. It meant he’d be bored the better part of a year without his brother. If only he were a little older, a little closer to Thor’s age…

 

He catches himself biting his bottom lip. Ms. Turner would scold him for it again if she were here, but thankfully Loki can slip away unseen from almost any engagement as well as outrun anyone. Their parents were away most of the time, and all he was left with were her stern teachings on etiquette and mannerlies. _Nerves._ Odin had once diagnosed monosyllabically, in that gruff gravitas of his that was that was both judgmental and bored at the formal dinner table. If Loki had thought he’d been paid at all attention to, he would’ve taken better care to put on airs. Seeing as he was alone however, he could bite his lip without reprimand.

 

 _I hope the summer lasts a good long while._ He thinks. What if…what if Thor changed though? What if Thor had become severe like the butler, or boring like the tutors? He hurriedly shakes his head. It hadn’t been _that_ long.

 

The distant sound of hooves and wheels grinding on gravel spare him from further introspection. With a grin, Loki locks the gates together again, hiding behind the lane pillars, undetectable from the direction’s angle.

 

Soon enough, the rider comes into view and then pulling on the reins to halt the horses. The massive beasts toss their manes and snort at stopping. He scowls at the lock and grumbles at coming down himself to permit entry. His giggle gave him away however, and the familiar shout of his name is all that spurs him from his hiding spot. He’s running across the property in a head start before Thor’s leather boot heel even hits the ground.

 

“Loki!” before the blond-haired youth rushes past.

 

“Young master!” the usher cried in dismay. So much for an orderly return.

 

Loki didn’t mean to test Thor, he really didn’t. But they’ve never been shy of their brotherly affection for each other, and it’s always been that the greater he has put up a chase, the greater Thor would have to come after him in pursuit. He just wanted to see how well or poorly Thor still fared after all this time. That’s all.

 

It’s just before the lawns were set to be cut again, but this was the length Loki liked it best, long enough to leave a trail of tamped down grass where he tread, supple and long where it started to lean under its own weight, the slender things. Thor closes in on him from behind and makes the final distance by tackling his little brother by the waist. They go tumbling down a ball full of riotous laughter.

 

Thor ends up on top by the end of it. Loki can’t breathe properly long enough to form words. His brother is peering down at him, school uniform an absolute green-stained ruin and blades of vegetation stuck in his hair, but he’s rosy cheeked and smiling such a dazzle. It didn’t even seem to matter that the day was overcast the way Loki leaned towards him, finally, coyly, “Did you miss me?”

 

“Did I not have to hunt and pin you down to prove it?” Thor replies, arms bracing Loki’s sides, as if his little brother wasn’t just one wiggle and a roll away from initiating the game of tag again. On another day, and maybe even in three, Loki would’ve taken advantage of Thor’s folly at leaving his flanks wide open for a ticklish assault, but he’ll let Thor have him easy for his homecoming.

 

“I should think they’d have you growing moss at the academy, the way you pen your letters.” huffing his complaints to the side in a dramatic toss of his head.

 

“I can’t help it that they read them right before they’re sent out.” Otherwise you and mother wouldn’t receive any at all.

 

Loki raises an eyebrow at the idea of _secrets_ and _professions_ – a year’s worth – being kept from him. “Tell.” He demands impertinently.

 

“Loki,” he whines. “I haven’t even had luncheon yet, and now it’ll be at least a good distance’s walk before I get to see what’s been prepared.” Thor pleads, making to get up.

 

He pouts.

 

Thor had been on the road all morning, and certainly within his dues to feel hungry, but he couldn’t help that the comment stung a little. Loki had been out waiting since early morning too.

 

Thor scowling at how it’s too late for his jabot tie, only making the chlorophyll smudges worse along the dupioni silk.

 

“If—if Ms. Turner sees you in that state she’ll find a switch to make you apologize before you even shove in a mouthful of food.” he lies. Ms. Turner wasn’t allowed to apply corporeal punishment, and even if she were, it’d be unlikely that Thor would bear the brunt of it, but the nervousness in which he said it was caution enough for Thor, who paused in soothing his clothing about himself.

 

“Hardly my fault is it?” he gripes, weighing the importance of his presence back with the insolence of his reunion with Loki. Thor was supposed to have been a year matured, back drawn tighter and chin lifted higher since his time away, but seeing Loki again somehow threw all of that out the Italianate window.

 

“I have an idea.” Loki pitched eagerly.

 

“Oh?” Thor holds himself back.

 

That was ever his little brother’s way. Loki would get them in trouble and at the last moment be sure to get them out. One of these days it was bound to falter, but a small thrill in the pit of Thor’s belly temporarily replaced hunger, knowing today would not be it.

 

“You know that annoyance will turn to worry…eventually.” Loki connives. Thor crosses his arms. Loki continues, “Our return could be greeted with hugs and tears from the servants instead of admonishment. We just need to stay out a little longer,” he pauses.

 

“Longer than that even,” he corrects “and somewhere on the grounds where they can’t find us if they go looking.”

 

Thor liked the sound of others fawning over them, and oh, very well, he could put off food a bit longer, after all…

 

He relents and smiles broadly. “Fine.”  

 

They wander off to Loki’s favourite area by the riverbank that obscured an old gazebo with its yellowing paint and sun-warped floorboard. Because of the trees, the lakeview was no longer accessible at tea times, but because an ill-fated daughter of their ancestors had loved the willows, they were now too large to cut down and too inconvenient to remove.

 

With Thor having been gone, Loki had found it strange being a single child in the custody of those running a single mansion on a single estate. He felt so very small. And yet, with Thor sitting beside him, he still felt small. He slowly ran his hand down Thor’s arms, tracing where muscle had filled in where he had been lanky before. Thor had removed his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. The day was becoming humid. He leaned his hands behind his head and Loki lowered his head on Thor’s chest. Each enjoyed the other’s presence. Thor hadn’t hit his growth spurt yet though and was able to rest his chin comfortably on Loki’s crown.

 

To Loki, it almost felt like Thor had never left, and to Thor, there was no urgency in him to being away ever again.

 

But then Thor shot up, blue eyes wide. “The chocolates!”

 

Loki mumbled and rubbed his eyes from sleep. “What chocolates?”

 

Thor checked his coat pocket sheepishly. He had been saving the last two chocolates from the bunch Frigga had sent him during Christmas, rationing them all throughout winter and spring, hiding them from the other boys in a different spot every week. Loki would’ve been most impressed at his demonstrable subtlety. They were Austrian, individually wrapped in pretty foil, and most of all, had marzipan filling. Loki’s favourite.

 

“I can’t believe you still have some.” he said. Their mother consulted him regarding presents for Thor, months previous. What Loki also didn’t know was that Thor kept his letters from home in the tin they came from, which was still packed in his trunk.

 

The foil contained most of the melting mess out of the fabric, but the shape had deformed, and they no longer looked as appealing as they ought to have. Thor looked at them disappointedly, sticky sweetness rubbing off and coating his fingertips.

 

“Yeah. You accused me of never sharing.” Two seasons away from his brother was enough to consider sharing with any trying sibling, once given the opportunity.

 

“Oh.” Loki sat on his knees, unexpectedly feeling a little peckish himself as well.

 

Then he crept over Thor’s lap and licked at Thor’s fingers. It tasted delicious, with a faint flavour of salt that was Thor’s skin. He laved slowly the skin between each, sucking the digits clean one by one. “Thanks.”

 

“You finished mine too.” Thor added, petulantly, though said nothing at the time.

 

“Couldn’t exactly tell. It was one congealed mess.” Loki says, licking his lips.

 

He missed a spot, much to Thor’s dismay, where it stuck teasingly just below a corner of his little brother’s smile.

 

From under his lashes, Loki realizes Thor staring, and, energized by Thor’s intent focus, tears of with breathtaking speed at the toss of his head and the flounce of his raven hair. By the silver of Loki’s laugh, Thor can only follow.

 

They ran all the way to the end of the vast grounds, mist cooling their faces while their chests burned, running to where harvest-full grass became more varied, where estate property was beginning to become encroached upon by wilderness, or perhaps it was the wilderness returning to reclaim what was originally theirs. Loki comes to a decelerating momentum where the wind lost itself within the forest line, looping around an enticing sapling. Thor caught him between two branches and Loki turned to face him, resting where the trunk split.

 

He makes a show of craning his neck to look over Thor’s shoulder. Thor doesn’t fall for it. “They must be right concerned by now,” knitting his brows together in fake anguish, as if it hadn’t been his idea all along, appealing to Thor’s sense as the responsible, older sibling. Daring him to call it quits and not do to him whatever he was going to, now that he’s been captured. 

 

Thor raises an eyebrow. “Didn’t you ask me about earlier what I couldn’t tell you about in letters?”

 

“Of course,” Loki grins wickedly.

 

He’s been sitting on this secret for a while now. Wanting to tell it as badly as Loki wanted to know. “Wes and I snuck out on one of the nights when the schoolmaster came down with the flu and arranged to take the train to a neighboring finishing school of Fandral’s cousin’s.”

 

From his little brother’s wide, unblinking green eyes, Thor could tell he still didn’t put one and one together.

 

“Isn’t that where girls go?” he asked, blithely. Though mischievous in all that he was a trickster, but still innocent in the remaining handful of years Thor between them, and oh how it showed.

 

Sometimes Loki could be terribly vexing. Explaining it explicitly would ruin the fun. He was supposedly to be stifling his laughs by now. Instead he was biting his bottom lip again – that old habit he hadn’t grown out of. The rubescent flesh was dark with tension, and plump with pressure. And still too, that tiny fleck of chocolate at the corner.

 

With a swoop of his head, he takes Loki’s mouth in his own, color matching the shade of the berries in the boughs of the tree they’re embraced in – ones he’s been warned never to eat. The taste, however, was like nothing he’s had before.

 

Loki’s tongue is quiescent in its non-understanding. Thor pulls away grinning at his stunned expression and counts the seconds before Loki puffs a tiny exhale of _‘ah.’_

 

“How was it?” he asks.

 

“I, I wasn’t prepared ahead of time to make proper note.” his adorable little garden snake of a brother stammers. Like this was something he was supposed to read a chapter before class on.

 

“Another is easily done.” he says, wanting more himself.

 

This time he’s less intrusive about it. Though unsure and unpracticed, Loki’s normally articulate tongue attempts hesitating greetings.

 

Thor pulls away for air. “Mmm, try doing so like the chocolate earlier.”

 

He does, and, like Thor knew he would be, was a quick study.

 

They help themselves, daylight slow to descend, curiosity insatiable. With the promise of the rest of summer ahead of them.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which siblings overshare, have zero boundaries, and can't tell right from wrong.


	3. World C.1

 

 

He is out of place here.

 

The harsh tread of his boots on the arabesque tiles of his father’s harem alert everyone to that fact. However, the eunuchs do not stand up to him and the servants lower their veiled gazes nervously when he storms by. One angry eye with determined purpose towards the chambers of his half-brother, and he sneers that Loki has found himself here as well.

 

Was it not ever so the serpent’s nature to sink its fangs into the softest skin? Cleopatra died with an asp to her breast after all. Beautiful Loki. Just happened to look so lovely in the late Farbauti’s clothing, so much so that Odin had assigned him his mother’s old rooms, waiting for the day he’d grow into her dresses.

 

But Loki couldn’t simply sit around looking pretty could he.

 

“Y-your majesty,” the slave girl bowing nervously and blocking a set of doors, “he’s taking his afternoon bath still.”

 

Endless battle campaigns in the desert has worn his patience to nothing. He snarls and shoves her aside, barely feeling the weight of her flimsy silks and person as she put up a second’s struggle. Being in the harem may have been amusing if he were not out for blood. Everything and anyone within it he could break with his bare hands. They’d best scurry if they didn’t want to find out what it was like first hand to court the prince’s legendary temper. Then again, Loki always posted his most dispensable individuals to guard at doors. She probably feared his execution orders as much as Thor’s return.

 

He enters and she is not brave enough to try and hold him back.

 

From what though, the interiors of the room would have made it laughable. Colorful cushions and the perfumes of ambergris? While he has been occupied at the warring borders of their empire, Loki has made himself comfortable at least.

 

He flexes his hand in annoyance and looks around.

 

“Ah, so the golden heir has returned. Early blessings upon Asgard.” comes the darkly sweet lilt of his brother’s voice. Loki emerges in a light summer shift, drying his long, damp hair with a cloth where it was already curling at the ends.

 

He walks towards him with a bounce in his step as if Thor has been invited for a social to the tea house and smiles at his older brother like no one else in the land has missed him more.

 

Thor backhands him and Loki falls.

 

He makes to rise with a hiss of curses and insults “You barbaric ingrate—!" Ah yes. There was the viper unmasked. Thor had slammed the doors shut after barging in, which was the only reason why Loki was revealing himself so easily. He steps in front of Loki – noticing they are of a similar height, though Thor’s frame dominates his sibling’s slender, more effeminate figure, with Loki, suddenly, realizing it too.

 

That, and the fact that Loki has no competent guards, no physical advantages, and nothing to hide behind, whereas Thor is still armored, one hand on his sword’s metal scabbard and the other on the hilt, just one quick motion away from drawing. Loki pauses for self-preservation.

 

“Don’t think I don’t know of the assassins you sent at Sonra.”

 

Loki smirks bitterly, showing teeth.

 

“And the two. Others. Before. That.” Thor grinds out.

 

“Yes well,” Loki stalls, “Can’t you give your beloved little brother some credit for at least selecting the most incapable ones? I simply wanted to keep sharp your survival instincts. Never know when the next dispatch might not be as _generous_.”

 

The dagger tip directed at his side on emphasis, centimeters away from slipping between the connecting plates, if not for Thor anticipating the move and catching Loki’s wrist in a bruising grip.

 

He twists and Loki sinks to his knees with a cry. “Living in the harem has made you soft.” and follows-up by kicking the weapon across the floor.

 

“Surrender your tricks, unless you want me to strip you.”

 

Loki cradles his hand protectively and glares from beneath.

 

“Hmph. Then stay like that on your knees.” Mood still dangerous, but almost…disappointed in how Loki so easily submitted. He was rightly furious, and more than the betrayal of blood and rank was the undisguised malice he now saw in Loki’s eyes. Three years apart had changed them. Back then they had been the closest of playmates. Back then Loki’s mother, one of his father’s favourites, had not died and left her only child to fend for himself in the snake pit that was the harem.

 

Back then they called each other brothers and meant it.

 

But time and distance alone, however, do not account for Loki’s hatred in full. “Why?” voice giving way to some emotion other than anger for the first time.

 

Loki spits on his boot. “I owe you nothing. Be done with it if you want to prove to me you’ve learned how to handle a sword since.”

 

Tch. Fine. This was no longer the timid youth gazing on him from lowered eyes for the first time when Farbauti paid her respects to Frigga during Thor’s succession naming. He was no longer the same brash teen to immediately take a liking to the elegant youth, flowering like ornate henna under his mother’s tender care, eyes greener than jade and attention even more precious.

 

As forgiving as Thor could be however, fratricide was not one he was planning to do so for. He draws his weapon and tilts Loki’s chin up so that he can look upon the face of Loki as he is now – different in many ways, but also much the same in how much the recognition hurt.

 

“Choose then. Your life or sworn servitude.”

 

Loki jerks his head back to shake it in dry laughter. “You still offer me choice even now.”

 

Thor tilts the blade a fraction so that the light catches on edge, gleaming with the stains of dried blood. He has not cleaned it since running the last veiled intruder through. “You’d be wise to consider.” Since when had Loki become this beyond reason?

 

As if to prove his consternation, Loki only leans his head back, exposing that pale, slender neck to the sword tip, shuts his eyes, and smiles in…

 

The gesture is the final act of suicidal defiance that reignites Thor’s temper, but now it’s a cold contempt, as opposed to blazing outrage, and suddenly pities Loki more than anything. “If you’ve become this imbecilic, perhaps I have nothing to fear from you even if I let you prance in your skirts and slippers.”

 

More than calling his bluff, Thor is now retreating from the destructive attention seeking Loki was sometimes prone to, though usually never to this extent. He sheaths his sword, resting his hand on the pommel and turns away, expression dark.

 

Loki blinks his eyes open in confusion for a moment.

 

His warrior brother strode to the high table and settled his helmet down with a deliberate and ungentle sound.

 

Back when Thor had left the palace, his hair had been long and as glorious as a lion’s mane in the midday sun. Now it had darkened and was kept shorn close to the scalp. The only trademark that still remained from those softer years was the red cape, and even now it showed signs of wear from the sandstorms and elements.

 

 _‘How is it that you look even more formidable in your ragtag military wear?’_ he thinks miserably.

 

Then, upon noticing that he is being _ignored_ of all reactions, Loki sharpens his tongue to throw a tantrum. Seventeen and still such a temperamental child Thor muses, satisfaction gracing his lips. “I’ve decided for you, since contrary to common sense, you continue to behave like a spoiled brat.”

 

Loki’s smile curdles. “Get out then.”

 

Thor snorts. Not a fortnight ago he had been commanding troops and taking hostages. So if Loki thinks he’s going to be giving the orders even within his “domain,” well… He takes a seat on the majlis sofa, leaning back on the first regal, soft surface in years and props his feet up. “Remove my boots for me.”

 

“If you think that you can ride in like a camel-bouncing illiterate and upend _my_ quarters—”

 

Thor rises to close the distance between them in less than the time Loki can complete his sentence, seizing Loki’s throat and pinning him against a column. “Just because I didn’t impale you earlier doesn’t mean I can’t still make it hurt.” and makes his threat clear by applying pressure to that delicate windpipe. His slippery brother. Not as slippery as he remembered.

 

Loki’s hands scramble at his and tries to shake him off. Not a moment ago he was ready to give himself up on Thor’s blade, but it seemed that dying like this was too graceless. Of course he’d be so vain, even in his plans for demise. Thor’s holds fast and none of his brother’s straining helps any. All that time in comfort and privilege among books and fashion has made it so that Loki has barely any muscle definition.

 

Thor already outclassed all other men in physicality, but the years have only further hardened him. Often it became difficult to understand when to be gentle when you’re accustomed to taking down the opposition’s army all but single-handedly. He felt the flutter of Loki’s racing pulse under his thumb and continued to apply pressure. Loki put up a good fight even as he struggled for air though, eyes remaining locked on his, but quickly losing focus. Thor let’s go just as spots start dancing in Loki’s vision, and belatedly registers how soft his brother’s skin is.

 

He waits until Loki finishes coughing, but not until he’s done heaving in air, trembling on his hands and knees, long hair falling in front of his face.

 

“Don’t make me repeat myself.” before returning to his spot and position on the couch.

 

Loki gets up on shaky legs, cheeks burning, hand covering the raw skin. Thor looks forward to seeing that milky flesh bruise. His younger brother is regarding him with an understanding of exactly who he was dealing with, once the fraternal sentiment between them was no more: equal parts disbelief, pain, and fear. ‘ _You’d never hurt me before this.’_

 

Thor evens his breathing, ‘ _You did it first.’_

 

Shaken, Loki lowers himself for the task commanded, hand braced on the heel and the other along the leather vamp. He tugs once and makes no progress. Thor scoffs and lets Loki struggle. He goes for the buckles like how he should’ve originally. The leather is stiff and cracked, difficult to maneuver open from its metal latch. All in all it takes much longer than necessary, and Loki is already plotting murder from the humiliation.

 

“I’d have thought you with more skill in stripping others by now.” And beckons for Loki to come closer.

 

Loki went.

 

Along with the indignity of the situation, it’s hard to swallow the small humiliation of his station, but Loki was not so cowed as to remain silent without retort “You might expect so from your desert whores after a night of raiding and pillaging, but back in the capital, people are more civilized, and I have kept my title as prince.” _Albeit only one by formality than true recognition_.

 

“I have no use for useless manservants.”

 

He wants to strangle him with the ties of his shirt following the removal of his chainmail but bites the inside of his cheek to keep his jaw set firm. ‘ _What would Thor understand?’_ His days were crudely and violently simple. The enemies came at him under banners while in uniform. His brother’s way of survival was blunt and bloody. How typical. Their dear father could not have sent a better son to conquer the borderlands if he had ten others.

 

“A cupbearer?” he knew all concoctions of poisons.

 

The corner of Thor’s lips twitches upward in jaded humor. Recognizing a flicker of Loki’s verdigris humor beneath the shadow of homicidal intent. He shrugged off his sweat-stained shirt, muscles tense from a day of riding. He gestures to Loki to massage his sore shoulders. An old habit that had been out of practice, but one that he used to do for him back when Thor took up his time in the training yard. The last remnants of the days when they had been close.

 

Loki’s hands are no longer used to Thor’s skin underneath them. Furthermore is to resist the temptation of sinking his nails into him, assuming they’d even be able to break the bronzed skin overlaying corded muscle at all… If only he still had his dagger within reach…

 

Thor speaks up at his less than servile ways. “You’ve never learned to be contrite for anything. I should toss you to my camp soldiers for a night. It might teach you a thing or two.”

 

“They’d have to get in line after the Allfather  _himself_.”

 

From how he stands behind him, Loki could not see how Thor’s eyes flashed, but he did feel it when Thor caught him by the forearm and deftly dragged him back in front like he weighed nothing. Loki yelped with the quickness of it, trying to pull back, but efforts futile.

 

“Enough of your lies.” But even as he said it, he could see the resemblance: long dark hair framing a fair face, within it eyes of an immense intelligence given voice behind a mouth as red as roses and poetry upon the ears that may hear it. Farbauti had been a rare beauty but also a tragic one. Odin stole her on the eve of her wedding to Laufey as a way of keeping Jotunheim under heel. She never saw her homeland again, and their father mourned her still.

 

“Your imagined slights with father have nothing to with the orders that you sent. I had to strangle your name from the assassin’s dying breath after the loss of my _eye_.” Thor punctuates with a growl.

 

“I wanted it as a keepsake upon completion of his mission.” he replies without evasion.

 

“For WHAT?!” Thor roars, jumping to his feet, uncaring of his state of half-undress.

 

“For leaving me here!” Loki shouts, unafraid of Thor advancing on him. They were face to face and eye to eye. Thor had been taller than him before he left, but they were of an equal height now and he was at least somewhat grateful for that.

 

Thor grasps his face in a harsh grip, eyes narrowed, voice low and sarcastic, “Oh yes, it must have been arduous, enjoying the attention, the lavish palace living, the jewels and splendor. Servants to do your every bidding, viziers for you to manipulate.”

 

He’s being unduly cruel. It’s not as if life in the harem is easy, this he knows, but Loki acts as if he’s the sole victim in all these grievances, as if he himself has not also become needlessly cruel. A pang in him, like the hollow of his lost eye, lamented the little brother he used to have.

 

The little brother he might have still if things had gone differently. He used the back of his hand to brush along the bruise where he’d struck him earlier, and his touch lingered. Loki swatted it away and Thor remembered himself, wrenching Loki’s chin forwards.

 

“I know you well enough that you’ll try again.” And if it were anyone other than himself, he’d tell them to be wary of the grudges his brother could hold.

 

Thor’s iron control was a strange counterbalance to his own seething powerlessness. With no where else to look, Loki couldn’t help but stare at the scarred over eyelid and the empty socket beneath. He wondered which carrion bird made off with it. Yet the thought did not bring him the satisfaction as it ought to have.

 

“Don’t be so asinine as to demand an apology then.” He spits.

 

Thor’s remaining electric blue eye roved over him, contemplative. His brings his hands up to square Loki’s shoulders straight, as if trying to reckon the figure before him at arm’s length proper.

 

“I don’t mind keeping you around to see you _try_ , but not before I’ve meted out punishment.” Before pulling him down, so hard that his brother fell into his lap.

 

“What are you _doing?!_ ” Loki shrieked.

 

With on hand on the back of his neck keeping him down, and the other slipping over the thin material of the lightly embroidered kaftan, Thor moved it over Loki’s sharp hips and stroked the bared curve of his buttocks. “Disciplining you for once in your life.”

 

And brought his hand down on the first spank.

 

The sharp smack shocked Loki into stunned silence more than the pain.

 

As Thor raised his hand again however, Loki resorted to a string of curses so colorful as to make enemy legions blush, and Thor halted to undo the sash and stuff it in Loki’s mouth. “Shut up.” He growled, sounding about as disgruntled as finding sand in his socks.

 

He then resumed his slaps over the petal soft expanse on the swell of Loki’s ass, grunting between ringing hits. “The hell you’ve been bathing in everyday? Buttermilk?” only to be met with Loki’s muffled silence. What a blessed sound. Thor changed the pace of his hits and watched as the reddened rear quivered. Thor knew the force with which he applied behind each. He may have been gentler than if it had been anyone else, but that is not to say he was gentle.

 

He continued smacking still, leisurely almost, taking his time so that he’d do it again just as the sound of the previous one dissipated into the mosaic walls, as the sharp impact spread into a burn against the large imprints his hand left. It was a strange fascination: feeling the flesh of it bounce.

 

Thor stops momentarily as Loki’s thigh tensed in anticipation of the next blow.

 

He removed the wad of silk from Loki’s mouth. His face burned, and his voice came out soft and pleading. “Stop.” There were unshed tears clinging to his lashes.

 

“Thor, stop.” He said again, a little louder and invoking his brother’s name. Thor found his temper cooling.

 

Yet he kept his tone stern and uncompromising, “Say you’ll behave.”

 

“Let me go.” Loki said.

 

“That’s not what I asked for.”

 

“I’m your _brother_. This is _sordid._ ”

 

Thor could feel the heat coming off Loki’s sore behind and hovered his palm over where it was reddest. “Where do you want my hand then?” There was still tension in the air like the static of a storm, and Thor could tell Loki was not yet ready to give in despite the pain.

 

Loki tried his best to turn his head back, catching a bleary image of Thor looking down on him unimpressed. “Fuck. You.” Out of breath.

 

Thor’s hand spasmed and he started to laugh while shaking his head, but it was a coarse, incredulous sound. His expression returned to seriousness in a heartbeat and picked up the slaps like before. Loki cried out on each one. The blows felt like it came from a plank more than muscle.

 

With his mouth freed, Loki could’ve spoken up at any time to relent and submit, but he wouldn’t, and Thor was silently impressed by the fortitude as well as annoyed by his stubbornness. After a dozen or so – he wasn’t keeping count – he slowed his rhythm, knowing it’d be mild torture for Loki, extending expectation along with the pain, and between hits he’d sometimes take his time to appreciate the body beneath him. Alternating between calloused rubs and firm squeezes, watching the blood beneath the flesh rise to the surface and bloom. He stifled a groan and tried to ignore the sensation of pent up lust going to his head.

 

For there were times, ah yes, many times, after the dry, spent days of spilling guts on the dunes, that Thor would think of Loki back home, a fine thing himself among finery, and rub himself raw to the image.

 

“Not that you’d appreciate being left here, but you would not have lasted a month on the battlefield.” It would’ve been a constant nightmare if Thor had to worry about Loki’s welfare every time he faced off against the faceless fodder. His name was legendary but not invincible, and all it’d take is one lapse in concentration and he wouldn’t live to see Asgard’s ascension.

 

Thor kept talking, but Loki’s mind was no longer capable of much comprehension. He only understood when air came down in a rush followed by steel delivered pain contained in all but the most tender part of his body. Pain flared and peaked, flared and peaked. He let out a wounded note that was likely lost to the slaps upon each, and fresh tears trailed down his face freely, eyes unblinking and unseeing.

 

Each time he remembered he was capable of ending the treatment just by forcing out a single syllable past his tongue, Thor’s hand would come down again and the thought would be lost, stinging pain replacing it. Just as the surroundings about him and the context for his predicament no longer made any sense, the one thing he became increasingly hyperaware of his lower end.

 

He had long ceased to struggle against Thor – it was no use, instead he fixated on the feeling of Thor feeling him up between slaps, the friction of Thor’s rough skin against his ass, the way his hips would be pushed down upon impact, and then the way they’d raise again to receive the next, grinding himself on Thor’s thigh all the while.

 

Heart pounding in his chest.

 

Pain giving way to pleasure.

 

“I hate you.” He whispered.

 

Thor heard and immediately stopped, frowning. Something in Loki’s tone had changed. The hand that had been holding him by the back of his neck encircled down so that the length of his throat filled it instead. Thor felt his butterfly pulse along the jugular, instinctively relishing the dominance he held in this moment.

 

It was throbbing and so was he. Now hard in his pants.

 

Ignoring that however, “Don’t make me resort to dragging you in front of the court and doing this there.”

 

Having caught his breath in the interim, “Have you ever even seen someone bleed to death out of every pore in their body from arsenic poisoning?” His tear-stained face then started laughing sardonically, “Poor girl, though of course, I couldn’t trust her in the end. I only regret that I dosed her triple of what was necessary. A waste of perfectly potent poison that I could’ve used on my other adversaries.”

 

His breath hitched and he tried to push himself up on his elbows, limbs weak and in no condition to crawl away. “This was the world you left me to.”

 

Thor growled and shifted in his seat, “You’re alive and cursing, aren’t you?”

 

He stared at Loki’s body for all that it had taken a spanking, how supple and lithe he’d grown. However, the recent exertion had caused them both to sweat, and now it was becoming downright uncomfortable. He tried to adjust so that his hard-on would go unimpeded, but upon doing so accidentally felt the underside of his brother’s hard cock along with Loki’s accompanying gasp.

 

His pulse stuttered in disbelief and the moment stretched on entirely too long where neither of them had anything to say for themselves. Instead he hissed “You _want_ this.”

 

“I don’t want anything except your life.”

 

And if Thor could trust his ears, heard the thick undercurrent of mortification. “Lie to everyone else if you must, just not to yourself.” Then he flips Loki over in his arms and onto his back, before standing up. A different idea occurring to him.

 

His brother moved too quickly for Loki to grasp what was happening until he was unceremoniously dropped on his own bed. Even the fine damask sheets felt abrasive against his sensitive hind as Lok winced. The bed dipped as Thor’s weight joined his, except Thor moved to overpower him once more by straddling his waist and pulling clothing over his head and arms, tying his wrists together.

 

Loki was now completely naked and bound, Thor leering atop him, admiring. Loki’s cock was a ruddy sanguine at the head with a painted stripe of wetness on his stomach. Thor’s fingers raked up and down his thighs, “Your options are still the same, but whether or not you beg is up to you.”

 

“No willing bed warmers for the _Lion of Asgard_?” Loki tries throwing in Thor’s face.

 

“If you want to play the victim I’ll let you.” And there was a dark, fond note in the way he said it. Leaning into the space between Loki’s legs while doing so, a hand latched around each ankle, bracing him open wide.

 

Loki had some kind of retort on hand, he’s sure he did, but then Thor’s mouth landed on his straining cock, tasting him in thick, broad-tongued strokes, and his thoughts were lost to the way his older brother’s mouth lavished him. No one else- no one had ever—he squeezed his eyes shut and sobbed to the side.

 

Being in the harem meant being treated as a woman, for all intents and purposes. He’d been taught how to pleasure but never to receive other than to pretend, and every time it’d been for the preparation of reliving Odin’s nights with Farbauti. The perversities fed in on themselves so fiercely until nothing of familial affection was recognizable, and the crime of incest waived.

 

Thor had not been there to protect him, sent far away only to bring glory to their father’s name, and Loki had been so alone.

 

Then Thor flicked his tongue into the tip of his slit and the fact that he was back consumed his mind. Thor was here. And he was here because of him. Though Loki never thought their reunion would happen like this.

 

Thor raises his head after a wet plop to peer over at Loki’s state “Say you want this as much as I do.”

 

To do such would’ve been akin to forgiveness, would let Thor back into his heart too easily, would be synonymous with assent. So he denies it.

 

“I don’t.” eyes staring past Thor, unfocused.

 

Thor doesn’t buy it, sitting up on his knees. “I wonder how hard you become when you do want something then.” Fisting Loki’s leaking erection all the while. He rather liked the dainty gasp Loki let out earlier and wonders if he can entice another one out.

 

He uses the beaded precome from Loki to smear the tip of his fingers and moved them lightly down until one was pushing on the entrance to his hole, watching for Loki’s response of ruination. His brother’s eyes and pretty mouth flew open at the sensation, confirming for Thor that he had yet to be taken there.

 

Loki stilled reflexively at the invasiveness of the touch. Thor’s thick fingers were blunt and the pressure there was not unlike pressing on a bruise due to the previous spanking. A like before, it was that strange mix of pain before pleasure, and his heartbeat quickened for the trepidation.

 

Thor studies him like a predator. “You’re as wet as a girl. It should be easy opening you up.” All the while, index finger circling his rim. Loki is panting from over-stimulation, nerves impossibly confused, and almost near the edge of coming.

 

His tormentor pushes in to the first knuckle and he does. Body betraying him in tremors.

 

Thor’s hand there to gather his spend. To Loki’s endless embarrassment, Thor chuckles, smug and rich. “When did you last come before this?”

 

“As if I’d tell you that.” Response flushed.

 

“Hmm, I’ll just have to imagine it then.” Pushing in the first finger all the way.

 

“Considering the amount you just spurted, it’s been…” twisting the finger inside him.

 

“Quite.” Lining up a second.

 

“Some.” Inserting that too.

 

“Time.” Stretching him open.

 

“Last week.” Loki slurs, tongue heavy.

 

“You're terrible at lying now.”

 

“M’not.” But even his denial came out weak.

 

“Just to me then?” Thor then removed his belt and buckle, shoving his pants off finally and exposing his own stiff member. He spat into his palm and slicked himself. Loki couldn’t resist looking and instantly regretted it. To be overshadowed in this as well was just another humiliation, and going by Thor’s thickness, there was no way…

 

The logistics of fit and size regarding your own brother was wrong, but it wouldn’t leave his head. Nor was it the first time such thoughts had been there.

 

He shook his head furiously. “You’re just like your father.” He grits out.

 

Thor instantly stilled and for a minute there was nothing but their breathing. Loki waited to hear the sound of metal being unsheathed, wanted perhaps to feel the slide of metal into his heart, but Thor did not, and when he touched Loki again, he flinched from the gentleness of his hand on the nape of his neck.

 

Loki felt his eyes water anew, fixed on the tattoo of Asgard’s crest on the shoulder of Thor’s sword arm.

 

“ _My_ father?”

 

Suddenly, his grip turned severe and Thor tilted his neck back with the strain and leaning over to growl his ear. “I said you’ve become a poor liar. If my blood is tainted, then so is yours, as you’ve proven.”

 

“ _I’ve neve—”_

 

“You tried to have me killed! While I would’ve done anything for you once the throne was mine.”

 

Loki tried to twist his head away, but Thor held him fast, staring into those panicked eyes. He pulled three fingers out of Loki’s clenched ass and was lining himself up neatly. “Now, are you going to beg?”

 

“Never.”

 

“Are you going to behave?” and Thor gripped himself in hand, tight at the base of his cock, to keep himself from coming too soon.

 

Maybe if he felt like he still really had a choice, he would’ve said yes, but even now Loki was contrarian, and seeing Thor needing to actively keep himself from spilling like this, seeing Thor bear over him with the weight of three men, with the tension of a bull and the restraint of a thunderstorm, with all the lost time in between them…

 

The smell of him.

 

The sight of him.

 

Loki was hard again, and it felt like a hair’s movement might set him off.

 

Loki doesn’t say yes. He doesn’t say no. He doesn’t say anything.

 

He felt empty most days.

 

He felt empty now where Thor’s fingers had been.

 

He felt to far gone.

 

Because then he kisses him.

 

It was soft and sweet when so little of Loki remaining was either.

 

He hadn’t been thinking. Thor so often negated the need for anyone to think, only follow. Even in his surprise, Thor’s majesty demanded compliance, and thus Loki offered himself with his mouth while Thor helped himself to Loki’s entrance. Every inch Thor pushed in was a breath Loki surrendered, until he felt too faint but to fall back, and still Thor’s mouth chased his.

 

He’d been right, it had to be impossible—but Thor kept moving, and it seemed like it would never end, until Loki felt the press of his hip and the swing of his balls—and then all reason shattered because Thor was in him; Thor was in him fully, and it could not be but it was. This should not have happened but already it had. He’d been right until he’d been wrong. _This_ was wrong but it felt so right.

 

It was simultaneously too late and not enough, and Loki doesn’t know anything anymore.

 

Above was slickness and the glide of tongue on tongue, oxygen passed between. Below was harshness and the ragged burning of flesh meeting flesh, becoming one.

 

Loki can’t differentiate through which he’s being sustained. It all felt so good and terrible at once.

 

The repeated motion of bouncing against Thor’s powerful thrusts sent him adrift on crests that washed over him in waves, and before he knew it, he was spreading his legs to grant Thor better access. He spoke against those moaning lips and Loki only understood because his mouth shaped the words just as Loki heard them. “I’m going to fuck you a dozen times before I let you rest, or until the sun goes down, whichever first.”

 

He came from the promise that was also a threat. Arms having been freed, when he can’t recall, but they encircled Thor’s neck and he hung on for dear life, spasming as ropes of ejaculate spilled. He cried out, voice breaking along the unrelenting rhythm and aftershocks. Thor swallowed his screams. Something leaked out from Loki’s stretched hole holding Thor like a vice, and he knew that his brother had come as well.

 

Somehow, an unvoiced question made its way through the haze of lust he was lost in, perhaps only one out of a thousand, that by chance alone, would make it through. _How long have you wanted this?_ But Thor slid in and out of him using the full length of his cock, the full force of his conquests, and the breath it would’ve taken to speak was never gathered to do so.

 

Thor _used_ him. Punishingly. Completely. Loki knew that if he could see himself, he might come again.

 

“I’m back now. I’m going to have my way with you until no one else can. No one else will dare lay eyes on you. You’ll rarely require clothing, and if you’re not ready for me, I’ll just take you how you are to teach you a lesson.” His hips snapped forwards and back. His hands roamed everywhere on Loki’s alabaster skin. Always hungry, seldom gentle. He was going to leave bruises and Loki wanted them, wanted anything Thor would deign to give him.

 

And for Thor, he was never again going to be able to survive without wanting this again now that he has the memory of it. As long as he had breath in his lungs, blood pumping through his heart, and was sensate enough to feel, he would stop at nothing.

 

He kissed Loki’s tears imagining fucking his little brother across the throne and didn’t require an oracle to know it would come true.

 

Loki moaned for a half second’s grace, coming for the last time, every bit of him wrung dry.

 

He was going to pass out. He was going to pass out while Thor continued to fuck into his unconscious body, come inside him as many times as he pleased, and then keep spanking and fucking him until Loki woke up or Thor fell asleep. Those were his last thoughts as senses turned bleak. Everything was Thor. Had always been Thor.

 

Sight, smell, sound.

 

Taste and touch.

 

And then there was nothing.

 

\---

 

Loki woke and his eyes adjusted to the low light level in his chambers. He turned his head and saw some of Thor’s belongings scattered throughout the room – his sword propped up along a column, some of his clothing folded on the high table. He tried to get up but sharply became aware of aching everywhere.

 

Holding his head in his hands, the memory of what he’d done—no, what Thor had done to _him_ —came back into focus, and so did the indignant anger. How _dare—_

 

He was mad.

 

That had to be it.

 

All of them mad.

 

Loki had to get out of here.

 

He ignored his screaming muscles and made his feet move all but a scant few steps before the chain around one ankle pulled taut. _That brute!_ Loki would have the final word, the final laugh, be the last one standing. But as Thor’s words rang in his memory _‘If you’re not ready for me, I’ll just take you how you are to teach you a lesson.’_ he decided to calm himself and bide his time.

 

Thor might easily let his guard down in the afterglow, during a moment of ecstasy, or even when sharing a bed at night. So he gently prods the spot between his legs, finding it, and tenderly nudging himself open so that he’d be ready for Thor again.

 

Running his fingers over the rim of his red hole, he waits upon his brother's return.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which I love it when my babies are horny and horrible.


	4. World C.2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
> A little insight into their complicated family history.
> 
>  

 

In still moments of suspended sunset, nightfall rose towards the pale stars, wherein the sun dipping low, imparting the moon so that for a brief time both occupy the sky. The sight was such a solemn splendor as she gazed at the deepening twilight through intricately cut lattice panels.

 

Somewhere, the mournful call of a male peacock travelled from the gardens to reach her in this prison. Its cry tugged at the feeling in her heart that she had tried so hard to stifle. The feeling of longing for release. For absolution.

 

On Jotunheim, her chamber’s windows had faced the sea, and as a lovelorn maiden, she had sought with every passing day, just one more turn of the heavens to bring forth the morrow. The morrow she was finally to be wed. A morning that would’ve shone gold on the waters so full of joy.

 

That evening light had been the same, but the romance was no more.

 

Now she was another’s, and the departing sunlight carried with it a guilt that no matter how many days passed, she would only be carried further away from when she had been blissfully engaged.

 

She started at the sound of someone entering, recognizing him by his footfalls. She fought the instinct to run and managed to will her body into remaining calm as he stopped to stand behind. His hand stroked her face and lingered upon the gold that encircled her throat like shackles, the ones that signified her as royal property – no matter how expensive and lovely they were. 

 

He brushed her dark hair back behind her shoulder, and then impatiently travelled towards her bosom where the neckline of her dress gave. Her hands gently met his. “Loki—he should be returning any minute.” she tries, with slim hope that it will work, but if the gods are merciful…

 

“Ah. I have sent a servant to deliver some chilled desserts to Frigga’s quarters. Thor will want to share of course.”

 

“Thank you, your majesty.” though her voice was sad. “A father knows his sons’ delights best.”

 

Odin chuckled at the compliment, as if his idea was sheer genius. A gesture of true magnanimity as opposed to the ploy which was to distract the boy from his mother’s side for a little longer. Children were so easily bought. A satisfied smile spread on his lips that the night should go unimpeded.

 

“They seem to have become fast friends,” he muses “but that Loki has always been a difficult one.”

 

And Farbauti took that too as another failing on her part as a mother after her first failings as a bride. It was not her child’s fault that he was disliked by so many of the other royal children on reputation alone, given how most of the other consorts and concubines hated her outright.

 

Odin’s favouritism extended its protection to her, but Loki was more vulnerable where children were especially cruel. Sometimes she recognized the confusion in his eyes when they refused to play with him due to his mother’s status, but how could she possibly explain to him in a way that he could understand?

 

In a strange happenstance however, Frigga’s son recently befriended Loki when he had been routinely ignored or bullied, and perhaps it was because of her status as queen that was invulnerable to petty squabbles in ranks that all the other wives were subjected to.

 

Farbauti knows she should be grateful…

 

“You don’t mind their close brotherhood?” she can’t help but ask, since Thor is Odin’s declared heir.

 

He had a good number of sons and twice as many daughters. It wasn’t his negligence if he often he overlooked what Loki’s potentials were (that’s what the tutors were for). It was already generous enough of him to conceal his true parentage, but then, what was one brat to his great dynasty anyhow. As long as the boy’s wellbeing kept his mother happy, but all that depended on how easily the child would be to control. For now…

 

“Loki is a bright enough child. He knows how to stay out of trouble, and if he doesn’t then he will learn.” voice taking on a darker pitch.

 

And that insinuation always played upon her greatest fears. That one day her boy would be taken away from her, and then she would be truly alone. “Please darling, he’s your son too – in every way that matters.” hating how she must beg for even this.

 

No one could know. No one must ever know. Not even Loki. Especially not Loki.

 

What it would do to have such nascent insecurities confirmed in blood.

 

Odin had at least kept her secret, but he did not do so without certain expectations. She could practically feel his lusty gaze on the pale column of her neck from where it followed low. So she lets her hands fall away…

 

For she and Laufey had consummated their love shortly before the formal wedding, so sure that they were certain to be each other’s. A young and foolish couple.

 

_Beloved. I never wanted to betray you like this…_

 

Odin’s lecherous hands slipped her gown off and greedily explored her body. All she can do is let him in shameful silence. Outside the male peacock cried once more in plaintive panic, the sun finally set.

 

* * *

 

It took a fortnight of his brother being chained to his rooms and under Thor’s watch until Thor found out. By then Loki had become desperate and was reduced to begging to be released between fits of rage. Those in of itself would not have been out of character, but his intuition told him something else was wrong.

 

When Loki had almost tried to stab him with a broken shard of pottery he had smashed, clutched in his bloodied hand…

 

The symptoms of withdrawal manifested in him as the suffering hellion, and no amount of cock stuffed in Loki’s hole while he was gagged and bound would prevent his body from going near mad with feverish want.

 

He had underestimated the extent of the damage done to his little brother. By then he had enough sense to clean themselves up and call for the palace physician. Male practitioners were forbidden in the harem, but then Loki was biologically male anyway.

 

He took barely a minute at Loki’s shivering form, his dilated pupils, and shallow breathing, before telling Thor--

 

An addict.

 

Just like his late mother.

 

Loki giggled and ground his hips against the sheets at the diagnosis. If Thor’s anger could’ve cut through the poppy seed’s haze of delirium, Thor would’ve struck him. That he could’ve been so _stupid_ — he holds back and breathes. Suddenly the words and whispers of how their royal father had taken pains to have Loki groomed for his pleasure took on a different meaning.

 

When he was young and played at blithe incomprehension at the way the harem’s hens clucked and gossiped, there was no end to the derision lobbied from them at Farbauti with their silken veiled taunts. When she had first been kidnapped and caged in the palace, her tears after a fortnight began to grate on Odin, who had already been gracious enough in giving the woman one of the most luxurious quarters and accommodations.

 

That she would not even have half a change of heart to let the old bastard under her wedding skirts! _‘What a thought.’_ tittered some lowly ranking consort.

 

Farbauti could not have held out forever, for Odin was known for having his way. All it took was a servant’s subtle placement of opium infused scents during her late evening hours of prayer before she became pliant enough to succumb to his father’s advances.  

 

And the many nights after that.

 

By the time she found out, it was too late to preserve any sense of chastity. As well she had become pregnant. And then the opium’s promise of forgetfulness became her only embrace.

 

The physician glumly told him of his only two options: allow the addiction to continue – in which case relief would be easily found in the ground up seeds of the plant that he need only order a servant to fetch…or he could decide to wean the prince off its effects by denying him such.

 

That was two days ago.

 

Thor watched Loki’s limp figure on the bed – finally still – a temporary reprieve for muscles that had become exhausted from thrashing. Those green eyes were closed, and consciousness faded out. Two trickles of tears ran down his cheeks: the only indication he had that Loki was still alive.

 

“He probably won’t come around for a few hours your grace,” came the voice of one of his mother’s handmaids – one that he could trust. Perhaps it was a suggestion for sleep, but she must have been even more tired than he was. The both of them tending to his side. She rose to fetch another basin of cold water.

 

The bandages on Loki’s hand were still clean, thankfully. He had worried that the wound would tear open again. He’s used to seeing blood, his own included, but it was always for Loki’s sake that he fought those wars. To keep him safe. Even if it meant being apart.

 

That’s what he had believed. Turns out more harm befell his brother in him being gone.

 

His pallor was pale and papery thin. Almost as if he’d crumple upon touch, but Thor gently wipes the damp hair away from his forehead and tucks the dark strand behind an ear. The fever receding for now. Earlier he had ran a cool cloth over his brother’s sweat stained body, entangled in sheets that seemed to cause him pain even from their threads.

 

Loki’s wiry frame had surprised Thor with the strength of his struggles. Not all of the anger directed at him were from the opium’s effects he’s sure, but if it helped in any way to have it taken out on, Thor let him.

 

If Zafirah were not gone and Loki could not be trusted to be alone, Thor thought he might have given in and run out of the harem – to find a dose for him, whatever he needed – just to not have to see him suffer any longer. But sentiment would not weed out this sickness, so Thor had to quash it.

 

His own wounds ache with the absence of his eye most keen.

 

A gentle wind blew in. Momentary respite from the heat. For it was mid-summer and the days were blazing. It’s nothing compared to when he was armoured and on the front lines. A few days before they had broken into a fight over the windows. Loki complaining that it was cold of all things and tried to have them shut. Thor snorted mirthlessly.

 

Loki’s hand twitched from the edge of the bed where it dangled, and Thor was by his side in an instant. He was as weak as a newborn kitten, and twice as vulnerable.

 

Those dew green eyes slanted open slightly, but heavy with effort, and little focus on anything in sight. He mumbled something with strange tenderness, even though his exquisite voice had already been screamed hoarse.

 

It was hard to tell what state of mind Loki was in when he was like this – not exactly lucid, not quite awake, but not sleep-talking either – and sometimes, snatches of awareness slipped through. So Thor listened rapt to the words of a madman.

 

“—m dying aren’t I brother?” said so softly that Thor, beside him, could barely hear.

 

It was the pain talking, not him, Thor reminded himself. “You’ll live you dramatic fool.” He tried being jocular. Dying. How often had he heard that word now in the last few days? He’s sure the sensation could be described as nothing else, but at least this was a change from the accusations that it was by his hand that Loki was so.

 

He recalled, with nothing else to distract him but the severity of Loki’s words, the deliriums of last night. _You’ve come back to kill me haven’t you? But death is a joy._

 

Were they accusations after all or wishful fulfillment? Thor couldn’t tell. He doesn’t want to think otherwise. There were always a thousand things one should never believe Loki on, and within each one, always, a shred of truth at the heart of the matter.

 

He should get some rest, perhaps take a nap. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to maintain his strength through the next violent spell.

 

A wince of pain on Loki’s expression releases him of that notion. Thor shifted on the bed carefully, lest he add to the oversensitivity of every touch and sound that Loki was experiencing.

 

“If I’d known they’d do this to you, I swear—”

 

The rest of it goes unsaid. Thor will have his vengeance.

 

Such perverse reconciliation in the most horrid of situations. He had come back in a rage to repeatedly rape his younger brother, then to nurse him back to health and wrest him from the clawed grasp of his drug addiction, only _now_ to have such an insecure peace.

 

That’s right. The moment he’d come back Loki had been taking a bath. Luscious and luxuriant. Thor wanted him healthy and whole, but instead he had him sickly and broken.

 

 _‘Once Loki recovers_.’ He keeps telling himself. _‘Things will be different.’_

 

“Just like… she did.”

 

And for a moment, the words were so faint that Thor nearly missed them. There was only one woman in his life that Loki could’ve been referring to. His mother: “the beauty of the North.” Farbauti’s sudden death had always haunted Loki.

 

“Don’t leave, Thor, don’t leave.” starting out as a whisper and then became a plea. Loki’s eyes searched but continued to stare past Thor even as he was staring at Thor, as if he didn’t recognize him. The words jolted to a memory of their childhood – back when everything was so much less entangled than it was now.

 

“I’m here. Everything will be alright.” He croons, like talking to a child. He passed the back of his hand over Loki’s cheek, gently because he was worried that the touch would hurt, but then surprised at how he leaned into it. Damp tears on his red-rimmed eyes and parched lips grazing his skin. The breath he exhaled nearly scalded.

 

He scolds himself for letting Loki go without water for so long. The last thing he wanted was dehydration.

 

The pitcher was within reach, and Thor poured a silver goblet.

 

But his brother’s head rested on its side, and Loki had no strength to raise it. Thor could neither bring the rim of the cup to his lips without spilling. So instead he did the only logical thing: he downed the cup, then moved to support his brother’s upper body with one arm, his head with the other, before bringing his lips to Loki’s.

 

The touch was purely clinical. Except that sweet mouth was hot like fire, and Thor took his time savouring the kiss that would provide what coolness it could. Loki’s mouth trembled and Thor forced open his lips wider with his tongue. It went down easily enough when Loki didn’t fight him.

 

He whimpered when Thor pulled away to pour another, but Thor reassured him with his hands around Loki’s waist, maneuvering with the other instead. With the next exchange, Loki moaned against him. A shiver ran down Thor’s spine. After the third mouthful of water, as Thor pulled back, Loki’s eyes were a shade clearer, pupils wider, and enough blood filled his cheeks for a faint flush.

 

“Thor…”

 

He couldn’t look away. Wondering how incriminating he must have appeared as well.

 

Considering the sodomy that had been their hasty reunion, it was almost a new level of parody how wrong this suddenly all felt. Thor had never lacked strength all his life, and he should’ve had enough to settle Loki down in the sheets and pillows again.

 

“Thor…don’t leave. I’m so cold.” in the voice of a small boy, even as his forehead beaded in sweat. Thor’s face softened. The tiredness and resentment gone for a moment.

 

“Please. Please…” and Loki’s eyes begged along with his words.

 

He swallowed. The desire he saw in them unmistakeable. They were alone. Zafirah was likely fetching new linens as well and understood to knock and wait upon approval before entering. Propriety aside, what did it matter that he would be taking cruel advantage no crueller than he’d already? The most important thing was that his little brother needed relief and wanted comfort.

 

If Loki said he felt cold, then it was his duty to warm him.

 

A hitching breath caught in his throat. He leant down; temples touched together. With all that it took of Loki’s trembling arms, he brought them up and reached to lace his hands around Thor’s nape. “You’re back.” he said in strange wonderment. His gaze flitted between Thor’s stern and unhappy expression before shifting to confusion. “You’re hurt.”

 

And Thor couldn’t take it anymore. He selfishly descended on Loki’s inviting mouth, motion almost furious in its need. As if he could’ve made up for all those years of yearning. Loki moaned slightly in pain, but if anything, those hands clutched him tighter.

 

Thor felt his arousal quickening. Even as he told himself it was not too late to pull away.

 

However, it was Loki who let him go, his eyes’ focus having gone hazy again. His body went limp on the bed as Thor leaned over him, working his member free. The acknowledgement of wrong-doing undeniable but ignored. Some part of him couldn’t help but be drawn in by his brother’s unseeing, misted eyes. For there was a peridot passion tinged with sad, disbelieving happiness.

 

 _‘He thinks this to be a dream.’_ Thor realized. Loki was still trapped in the opium’s madness, and it vexed Thor that Loki would believe this mere _illusion_.

 

His beautiful, opium addled, slut of a brother. _Lie to everyone but yourself_. But Loki was beyond words so far gone was his mind.

 

Thus, Thor sees it, in his capacity as older sibling and keeper, to remind Loki of the truth. The truth that weighed hard and engorged in his palm, sliding over his dry fist before he slicked in his own hasty spit. It was terribly easy to drag Loki’s hips down, part his long legs, lift those knees, and do the same on that puckered furl of muscle. He could feel the heat radiate from that entrance. It called to every fibre of his being to sink inside.

 

Loki’s lids fluttered and those eyes rolled back when Thor entered him. The pale column of neck arching back in response. Thor groaned at how the pierced core of Loki was so hot. If he hadn’t melted off, it took a moment of him holding still as he pulled Loki’s pale ass to the hilt. His brother mewled softly and struggled for breath.

 

“Is the heat real enough for you now?” he growled impatiently. Surprised at his own annoyance for anything that wasn’t, currently and urgently, generating friction over his seated cock.

 

There was no way Loki could understand, but no matter. Thor’s hands traced up his sides to thumb over his dusky nipples. “Is this what you wanted?”

 

What sensation could even be had to a patient whose body was so exhausted with pain to the point of unfeeling? Thor wondered. It was just as well that Loki was too incoherent to answer, because then Thor didn’t have to stop. He started to move his hips, gently, all the while tuned to the meek, pathetic sounds Loki made. It turned him on. Loki’s eyes were now open and blown wide with unseeing comprehension. Thor took his bandaged hand and guides it over his pelvis – so he could feel the movement of Thor’s thrusts.

 

His hands were so soft and slight compared to his, the rough texture of the bandages more similar to Thor’s skin.

 

“Please…” such delicate, prayer-like insistence.

 

_You’re just like your father._

 

Those words arise tauntingly in a strange flip of the mind. Had Farbauti been powerless and pleading then too? Well then, perhaps it wasn’t such a bad thing to take after the old man. After all, it was thanks to Odin that Thor had Loki for a brother.

 

The difference? Loki wasn’t pleading for him to stop – and Thor needn’t be asked again.

 

He pumped into his brother’s body, transfixed by the ivory flesh that was taking in his ruddy member. Using the pressure he applied with his hand over Loki’s, he felt the visceral weight of both the violation and Loki’s dependency. And latched their fingers together, squeezing even as his hips slapped harder.

 

“You’re mine brother.”

 

None of the whores he had back at the camps felt even half as good nor sounded so sweet as he pulled back until his cock head was just barely inside, before thrusting back in hard enough that the rush of air left Loki’s lips in a whisper gasp. Thor meant to take it slow, but with each, one after the other, faster and faster, building on the ones before them, Loki’s head lolled gently against the nest of pillows with the force, body like a doll’s, and any prior restraint was all for naught.

 

At some point he had let go of their hands to wrap around that waist. He positioned himself over Loki, and rut into him like a dog. His breathing was ragged and undignified, but he did so love the sounds of skin meeting skin in the punctuated emptiness of the bedroom chamber.

 

And no matter how fragile Loki seemed, his body took him and didn’t shatter. Only his perfect little brother could contain Thor’s love. He seizes Loki like a true lover, both hands greedy and ecstasy almost within reach--

 

“You’ll live, Loki. You’ll live even if I have to fuck you to sobriety.” He grunts the words into his ear, kisses at the trail of salt-tears, savouring the taste.

 

Loki says nothing but the corner of his lips twitches upwards.

 

Perhaps with overwhelmed pleasure, in unvoiced horror, or affections requited.

 

Balls heavy with unreleased spend, his body tenses and spasms as he pours himself out with white hot incandescence, Loki sighs in contentment, as if finally getting warm at last.

 

Thor stayed inside, taking his time, softening gradually while staring at Loki’s face. The fine arc of his brows smoothed, indicating, perhaps, the first true tranquil type of sleep in a long while. He slowly runs his hands down Loki’s body, over every plane of flesh, until the slight shivers cease. Ruefully, he pulls out, and cleans Loki up gently while humming in satisfaction at the way his seed leaked.

 

He doesn’t realize how overheated he’d become until he pours some water for himself, downing it a single swig. Wipes the back of his hand over his mouth.

 

By the time Thor rearranged everything to look normal, Zafirah returns with impeccable timing just as Thor pulled the crumpled corner of a sheer silk sheet to cover Loki’s form. If she suspected anything from the way the scent of sex mingled with the humid air, she said nothing and kept her eyes lowered. Thor appreciates the discretion.

 

In only another few hours, Thor would be holding him as he thrashed, determined to break everything in sight, nothing but spitfire insults and pain as blood bloomed afresh on his damaged hand. He’d keep him restrained on the bed until the fit passed, and so went several more bouts of this.

 

Three more days went by. Eventually, Loki laid in his bed, still ghost-pale, but finally, sporting the weak but wicked smile of a winner. Thor studied his emotions, the same mixture of hostility and disgust that he was sure were real. He waited for new outrage or double-edged accusations…but they never came.

 

Perhaps it was for the best then that Loki not remember.

 

Of all the times he had to employ his method of getting Loki to rest and recover.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Say no to opioids, kids.


End file.
